One of a Kind
by Martin III
Summary: One evening, after an SOS Brigade meeting, Nagato is followed home by a familiar alien.


**Author's notes:** I was starting to think I'd have to jump out of chronological order with my next Haruhi Suzumiya fic if I didn't want to break my plan to publish my White Day-themed story between Valentine's Day and White Day. Then this story popped into my head.

This ended up being meditative to an extent that I've been avoiding recently, but I couldn't see any way around it. Nagato's just not that talkative. Hope you all enjoy hearing her thoughts.

The characters and milieu of this fan fiction work are property of Nagaru Tanigawa, Kyoto Animation, and Funimation, with the exception of the familiar alien mentioned in the summary, who is my original creation.

* * *

**One of a Kind**

"Are you okay, Nagato?"

The meeting was over. Haruhi Suzumiya and Mikuru Asahina had both gone home, and Itsuki Koizumi was standing by the door, putting on his coat.

Yet Kyon hovered by her shoulder, looking concerned. She wished he would leave.

Without looking away from her book, she gave a simple nod in answer to his question.

"It's just, during the meeting... after Haruhi let out that Miss Asahina and I were together yesterday, I mean... you looked kind of angry at me."

She flipped the page of her book. It was a good book, but unfortunately, her mind had no trouble concentrating fully on both the story and on Kyon's presence. Nonetheless, she had nothing to say.

"In fact, you look like you might still be angry."

"I am not."

The anger she'd felt earlier had subsided. There were two reasons why she wished him to leave, and anger was not one of them.

"...Well, that's good. It's just, you don't seem like your usual self. Koizumi or I can walk home with you, if you'd like."

Illogically, she glanced up at Koizumi. He was indeed still standing by the door, waiting, a gentle smile on his face. There was no reason for her to want to confirm this, since she had no intention of taking up the offer regardless.

She shook her head, and returned her eyes to her book.

"You're sure?"

"I prefer to be alone."

She also wanted to express that she appreciated the gesture, on both their parts: the idea would have been Kyon's, and Koizumi was likely going along with it only to appease him, but it meant something nonetheless. However, the words to express her appreciation did not come to her.

"...I see. Well, see you tomorrow, Nagato."

He turned and walked back to Koizumi. The two of them left.

The resulting silence was a comfort. She continued reading for six minutes, soaking it in.

Then she closed her book, stood up, and left, locking the room behind her.

As she walked home, she directed her thoughts to the anger she had felt earlier. It had been an unanticipated emotional response, and it was important that she analyze any unanticipated emotional response, for it could be the same sort of accumulation of errors which had led to her altering the world a little over a month ago.

She could not allow anything like that to happen again. Therefore, it was important to account for and treat the anger. She had an immediate theory for it: love. Specifically, the love Haruhi Suzumiya felt for Kyon. Kyon secretly courting another girl would be an act of unfaithfulness, an act both hurtful and unfair to Haruhi Suzumiya.

This was not to say that Nagato completely understood human love. Romances were much simpler than the relationships which existed between data organisms, but that did not mean they were easier to understand for a being which was alien to them. She knew that humans were driven to sexual reproduction for the purposes of propagation of the species and perpetuation of one's specific genetic material. She knew that both these purposes were best served by a stable system in which each human lived with and mated exclusively with an emotionally compatible companion, rearing any resulting offspring together. She knew that the best way to determine who would be an emotionally compatible companion was to spend time with them in isolation from others. But knowing everything there was to know about a subject was not the same thing as understanding it.

Still, her understanding was enough to suggest it as a hypothesis. Now it was a matter of testing that hypothesis, and in that respect she had an advantage over humans. Humans could only speculate as to their own emotions, a severe handicap.

Still walking, she assembled the experiment in her head. She used her memories of the SOS Brigade meeting that had just taken place as the template, and substituted a different name in place of Mikuru Asahina's.

She ran the simulation:

{{~~

Haruhi Suzumiya had an inscrutable grin on her face. "I want you to tell me exactly what you did and where you went with Tsuruya yesterday. Don't worry, I won't get mad."

Nagato felt her heart clench with outrage.

end_}}

The simulation perfectly supported her hypothesis. Her feelings were the same, so their cause was unconnected to Mikuru Asahina.

However, that was just one factor to be considered. There were others. She assembled another experiment, using the same memories, and substituted different names.

She ran the simulation:

{{~~

Haruhi Suzumiya thrust an accusing finger. "Listen, Koizumi, just because you're SOS Brigade Deputy Chief doesn't mean you can go on unauthorized outings! Now tell me exactly what you did and where you went with Mikuru yesterday."

Nagato felt confused. She wasn't quite sure what Terry Pratchett's depiction of Death was supposed to say about human attitudes towards mortality.

end_}}

Again the simulation supported her hypothesis. It confirmed that Kyon was a relevant factor.

There was one more variable to test: Suzumiya's feelings. Unfortunately, a world in which Haruhi Suzumiya did not love Kyon was beyond her capabilities to simulate. She lacked the data to do any more than speculate, and even if she had that data, the simulation would be too complex.

However, she was not yet ready to accept her hypothesis as fact. There were other possible explanations. She needed to test whether her anger stemmed from personal involvement, rather than a vicarious outrage on Haruhi Suzumiya's behalf.

She took the same template and made the appropriate substitutions. She ran the simulation:

{{~~

"And so he says to me, 'I saw the witch girl with a boy.'" A grin came over Haruhi Suzumiya's face. "Apparently he saw us when we were doing location shoots for the movie last autumn, and he really remembered seeing Yuki in her evil alien outfit. And so while we were on the subject, I asked him what the boy she was with looked like. And here's the composite sketch."

Nagato maintained her surface calm, not wanting to contaminate the subject she had been assigned to observe any further than she already had, but inside she rapidly scanned her data for the source of her error. Once again, by her actions, she had created a rift between Haruhi Suzumiya and her chosen one.

end_}}

Nagato briefly stopped. Then she resumed walking.

She'd run the wrong experiment. Her anger had been with Kyon, so she needed to examine her reactions to Kyon's actions. If she and Kyon had gone on an outing, that changed her own actions, not just his, and those actions contaminated her emotional response.

She needed to go back further, to a time before she might have agreed to the outing. This time, she used her memories of Friday afternoon, shortly after the end of the SOS Brigade meeting that day, as the template. She added Kyon into the memory, speaking words which he might have spoken to Mikuru Asahina at the time. She modified the words to reflect his speaking to her instead.

Speculation was involved, but only a tiny fraction of what would be required to run a simulation where Haruhi Suzumiya did not love Kyon, and most of the potential error was irrelevant to the factors she was examining. The experiment should produce reasonably accurate results.

She ran the simulation:

{{~~

"Nagato." Kyon stood at her shoulder, looking just slightly nervous. "Are you free this Saturday? I thought maybe we could go to the library together again. Just the two of us. We can't tell Haruhi, of course."

Nagato lowered her book to her lap, and looked up at him.

He understood her so little. And yet, she could not see him as her intellectual inferior. He had grasped onto what he could understand, and tried to meet her on her terms, rather than demanding she convert to his.

"Yes," she said.

Her answer came without reservation, without struggle. The words gave her nothing but contentment, and release.

"I am free."

end_}}

The results of the experiment were unfortunate. They contradicted her hypothesis in the most regrettable way possible: Rather than feeling anger at the disregard for Haruhi Suzumiya's feelings, she had disregarded them herself, and acted in a manner that would have made her feel terrible guilt had she done it in reality instead of just a simulation. Moreover, they supported the possibility that the anger she felt at the meeting had sprung from selfish reasons.

She did not want to accept that possibility as fact. There had to be an experiment she could run which might refute it. She went back to the previous template, her memories of the meeting, and changed the variables.

She feared the results of this experiment. If she indeed felt jealousy at Kyon's giving attention to other people, that was a serious error, and one she did not know how to correct. But she needed to know. If there was the risk of her again betraying Haruhi Suzumiya and Kyon, she needed to be aware of that risk.

And so, she ran the simulation:

{{~~

Haruhi Suzumiya had an inscrutable grin on her face. "I want you to tell everyone exactly what you did and where you went with me yesterday. Don't worry, I won't get mad."

Kyon's face reddened. "Do we really need to talk about all that in front of -"

"Oh, never mind, let's just give them the basics. We were on a date!"

Nagato felt confused. She wasn't quite sure what Terry Pratchett's depiction of Death was supposed to say about human attitudes towards mortality.

end_}}

Nagato felt a sense of relief, but she was far from satisfied. The results of her various experiments were not conclusive. Moreover, they were illogical according to both of her natures. A data organism would not have desired anything for her own personal benefit, as she desired the company of Kyon. And a human, if she desired companionship, would have been jealous at Haruhi Suzumiya taking it in her stead. She might feel guilty at such jealousy, but she would feel jealous nonetheless.

She had devoted enough time to examining her emotions for now. It was time to address the other reason why she had wanted Kyon to leave.

She stopped walking, stood for a moment, and turned 170 degrees to her right. Waited.

A young man emerged from around the corner of the building she was looking at. "I suppose it is time I showed myself," he said. "You've known I was here the whole time, didn't you?"

Nagato said nothing. There was no need to answer.

He approached her, but stopped when he was 3.7 meters away. "I apologize. I did not mean to act like a stalker. I didn't frighten you, did I, miss?"

"No."

"That is a great relief. Do you remember me?"

She nodded.

"I see. How very flattering. We only met briefly, and I had not thought myself to be very memorable. At any rate, I..." He fidgeted. "Forgive me. This is all most unconventional, and I have not even introduced myself. My name is Ginji Nagoshi."

She already knew that, but for courtesy's sake she nodded in acknowledgment. "Yuki Nagato."

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Miss Nagato." He bowed. "I... This is difficult. I am not even really sure why I am bothering you. It's just, I needed to talk to someone, and I saw you on the same evening that these troubles began, and so when I saw you were a member of the same group as Miss Suzumiya and her boyfriend, I thought you might have some connection to a solution for me. Of course, logically Miss Suzumiya might be expected to have a closer connection than you, but I feel I've already bothered her more than enough. ...Not that I have any right to bother you, but -"

"You are not bothering me."

Nagoshi's presence was, in fact, a comfort. While it would be grossly inaccurate to liken him to Kyon, there were points of commonality between them; they were awkward, yet considerate. Of course, it only made sense that a being who Haruhi Suzumiya had created to be her ideal boyfriend would have at least one or two things in common with Kyon.

"I am relieved to hear that," Nagoshi said. "I promise, if you at any time ask me to leave you alone, I will. Will you hear me out?"

She nodded. "Come." She turned around and resumed walking.

His footsteps followed hers. "Where are we going?"

"Apartment."

"Oh. I... That is, I greatly appreciate the gesture, but I do not wish anyone else to hear what I have to tell you..."

"No one else is there."

"What of your parents?"

"Not here."

"I see."

There was a silence.

"...I do not wish to risk offending your honor, but I fear my intentions may have been misunderstood. I only want to consult with you on some problems I am having. You are a very charming young woman, and I would be lying if I said I were not the least bit interested in better making your acquaintance, but at this moment, I have greater concerns on my mind."

"I have understood your intentions perfectly. We will discuss your problems at my apartment, where we need not fear interruption."

"That is most gracious of you. My apologies if my assumption gave any offense."

"It did not."

A longer silence followed, and there was no sense of discomfort in this one. Nagoshi was neither intimidated by her nor sought to abuse her perceived vulnerability.

She showed him up to her apartment, allowed him to remove his jacket, and prepared the tea.

They sat at opposite ends of the table. He took a sip of his tea. "It's good," he told her.

"I'm glad."

He paused, took another sip, then looked her in the eye. "My problem is really quite unusual. But of course, your group specializes in the unusual. That's why I first approached your clubroom; I thought to present myself as a client. However, as I already said, I do not wish to bother Miss Suzumiya further. That is how this all started.

"I was at a dance hall when I first saw her. I... honestly don't know what came over me then. I felt as though I was completely, madly in love with her. I suppose that wouldn't be so unusual if the feeling didn't completely go away just a few hours later. She was there with her boyfriend – though I assure you, I did not know he was her boyfriend at that time. I was so compelled to speak to her, I cut in on their dance. Miss Suzumiya was receptive, but her boyfriend, perhaps sensing that all was not right with me, tried to preserve her safety by taking her away from me. Miss Suzumiya objected to his actions, and I..." He lowered his head in shame. "...I struck him."

Nagato said nothing. She sipped her tea and waited for him to resume. In actuality, she already knew his story, but she could not allow him to know that she knew.

He took a sip of tea himself, and it seemed to steel his nerve. "I can really make no excuse for my behavior. I suppose because I was so maddeningly enamored of Miss Suzumiya, I made up a ridiculous story about my being from outer space, the last of an alien species. I used this as my pretext for wanting to speak to her in private, and as an explanation for why my social behavior was so deviant."

The truth was, Ginji Nagoshi _was_ from outer space, and _was_ the last of his species. That is, until Haruhi Suzumiya had lost interest in him and turned him into a normal human.

"Understandably, though, Miss Suzumiya was outraged at my attack on her boyfriend, and departed with him. I followed him, hoping to persuade him to negotiate a meeting between Miss Suzumiya and I. He is a very gracious young man, as I am sure you know. He was not angry at me for striking him, and even believed my absurd story. However, as I was speaking with him, I... It was as if the fog around my mind suddenly lifted. I no longer felt an obsession over Miss Suzumiya, and I saw all at once how ridiculously I had been acting. I apologized, and left. That is when I ran into you.

"For a while, it was like I'd had a strange dream which had ended. I returned to my normal routine the following day, and saw how ridiculous the idea of my being the last of my species is. I have parents. I have two brothers and a sister. I have friends and classmates at Kouyouen Academy, which I've been attending for the past two and a half years. I have an uncle in Kyoto, and another one living in San Diego. I have memories of my childhood, of books I've read, movies I've seen, school projects I've done. I'm clearly no more than an ordinary teen.

"Except that this past month, that hasn't felt so clear to me. This Christmas, I suddenly couldn't call to mind any memories of past Christmases. I say 'suddenly', because I'd been thinking of past Christmases as the season went on. I distinctly remember having no trouble recalling them – but then, one day, I couldn't call to mind a single one. I tried prodding my family about those celebrations of years past, in hopes it might jog my own memory, only to find a new layer to this horror. Oh, they remembered, all right. But I had no part in their memories.

"'Your brothers and sister put on that hilarious skit,' they'd say. 'The one where the awkward nerd and the tough motorcycle rider both try to get the same girl to go out with them for Christmas.' I don't remember it, I'd tell them. Was I there when they put it on? Why didn't I have a part in it? They don't know. They have no idea where I was. I ask them to remind me what I got each of them that year. None of them have any idea.

"I ask my friends at school what I was doing at Christmastime last year. They don't know. They don't even remember how we met and became friends. Was it in first-year? Middle school? Were we neighbors at one point? I don't know, and neither do they. And when they realize this, they look nearly as alarmed as I feel. So it's not some elaborate joke, or a hoax. It's not that I've simply gone mad.

"My past... nearly everything that came before the moment I met Miss Suzumiya... is gone from everyone's memory. Just gone."

He stopped for another sip of tea, trembling as he took it. Nagato waited. This part of the story was new to her, but it was not unexpected. She just needed to let him finish talking.

"There is some small relief in this situation." He put a hand on his arm. "My parents have pictures of me as a little boy. They showed them to me when I asked. So my life is not a complete hoax. I am my parents' son, my siblings' brother, my friends' friend. It's just that none of us remember the details.

"I knew that Miss Suzumiya had to be somehow connected. Not responsible, of course; an ordinary girl like her couldn't have caused this. But she has to be somehow connected. I asked people about her and was pointed to the SOS Brigade. The group sounded like they just might be able to find an answer for me. I left class early, snuck in with a North High uniform I borrowed from the friend of a friend, and peeked into your clubroom. I already was having second thoughts. I hated the thought of bothering Miss Suzumiya or her boyfriend again. You'd been there on that day, too, so I thought you might know something. And there was something about you. You looked... calming."

He was silent for a moment. Nagato waited.

"Forgive me," he said, and downed the last of his tea. "I don't know what I was thinking, approaching you... It was ridiculous to think that you could help. I mean, that anyone could help. This is something beyond all human understanding. I suppose I just wanted someone to talk to."

He stood up. "Thank you for that, at least. You're a good listener."

"I can help you," she said.

He blinked. "You know what's happened to me, then?"

She nodded.

"What is it? What's been going on? What is it that can do this to my family and friends?" he said in a rush.

"Sit."

After a moment's struggle, he managed to do as she said.

She took her time pouring him another cup of tea while he fidgeted. The root of the issue was the method Haruhi Suzumiya had employed to alter Nagoshi's life. She had not recreated the entire world to turn Ginji Nagoshi from an alien into a human. Therefore, she must have used existing people, and altered their memories to make them believe themselves to be Nagoshi's family and friends. Records such as hospital files, his birth certificate, photographs, and test grades would have had to be altered to confirm his human existence. It was a very complicated and difficult process, even for one of Haruhi Suzumiya's power. The Data Integration Thought Entity was still trying to achieve a full understanding of why Haruhi Suzumiya had done this instead of simply erasing Ginji Nagoshi. Nagato believed it to be compassion. The majority believed Haruhi Suzumiya was not yet capable of compassion.

Nagoshi was still anxiously fussing when she handed him his tea. "Drink."

He hesitated, then did as she said.

In addition to being complicated and difficult, the procedure of rewriting Nagoshi's existence without rewriting the world itself had structural flaws and chinks. It was unlikely that the changes had extended farther back than the data explosion of three years ago. More pertinently, the changes could be reverted by any full-scale alteration of existence – like the one Nagato had committed on December 18, approximately the same time that the memories of Nagoshi's human existence had come undone.

Nagoshi picked at his sleeve. "I loathe to rush you, but -"

"Do you have memories of being an alien?"

His eyes brightened with astonishment. "It's peculiar... that's why I didn't say anything about it before, because it didn't really matter... but the same time my normal memories went away, I begin to experience visions of life in outer space, of seeing my race wiped out, and of coming to Earth to seek Haruhi Suzumiya." A look of dread came over his face. "You're not saying that I really am an alien, are you? It can't be! What about my parents? My brothers and sisters, my friends? They're clearly real, even if I can't remember every day that I've spent with them!"

"Love them?" Nagato asked.

"Frankly, yes, I do! I may not have a firm grasp of most of my life, but even if these past few weeks are the only thing that's real, I hold them all as dear as my own life! Can you not understand -"

She regarded him quietly. He stopped himself and fell back, still seated, but now propping himself up with one arm.

"Forgive me," he said. "I shouldn't have lost my temper with you. This situation is just so maddening... but you're not responsible for it in the least."

His cup still had some tea left in it, but she took it and refilled it.

Even though she had shown no reaction to his outburst, his tone remained abjectly penitent, as if he had just yelled at an innocent toddler. "And if I am an alien... if that is the solution to my problem... I will accept it. Even that is better than this nightmare of simply _not knowing_."

She set his cup back before him. "Your problem is that your existence contains contradictory information. The contradictions must be corrected so that all your information is internally consistent."

"Well... I suppose that makes sense..." He spoke cautiously, apparently unsure how much he understood. "But how is that done?"

"Wait." Nagato got up, went into the bed chamber, and returned with a pillow. She set it on the floor. "Lie down."

He did as she said, and only then asked, "What are you going to do?"

"Correct the contradictions."

He opened his mouth as though to press her for details, but then paused, and closed it. He closed his eyes as well, even though she hadn't asked him to.

In actuality, to achieve a full correction of Nagoshi's state, she would need everyone he knew present. But that was neither practical nor necessary. Human memory is highly prone to suggestion, so given time and trust, his human acquaintances would come to accept his consistent memories just as if they had really happened.

She placed her hands on the sides of his head, and began.

She spoke the words, and her consciousness seeped into his. Information mingled, then melted together, parts of her mental being infiltrating and then seamlessly integrating with his. All sense of identity – human, alien, data entity, male, female, adolescent, child – was lost. From one frame of reference, Yuki Nagato was seated over a prone Ginji Nagoshi, treating his condition. From another, there was only one distinct being in the room.

A human could not access information that had been reverted by data manipulation. But a data entity could. The Nagato/Nagoshi being remembered everything. Languishing on hot summer days. Wandering endlessly through the dark reaches of space on a voyage to Earth. Buying a demon mask during Bon festival. Scuffing his knee while playing football with his friends. The new way his heart beat in his veins when he first saw Haruhi Suzumiya. The pride in his parents' faces when he showed them his first high school report card. Re-enabling the fog of war in The Day of Sagittarius III. Witnessing the destruction of his home planet, his entire world.

Sorting out which memories were Yuki Nagato's, which were Ginji Nagoshi the alien's, and which were Ginji Nagoshi the human's was no trouble. The three of them had lived such vastly different lives that each memory was clearly shaded according to its owner. It was as if someone had scattered the pages of three books around a room: one a medical textbook, one a gothic horror novel, and one a children's picture book. At a glance it would look like a hopeless mess, but even someone who had never read any of the books could easily sort out which page belonged to which book.

The only difficulty, and it was a mild one, was tagging the undesired memories so that they would be regarded as lies or fantasy, and sifting the desirable memories back to the surface so that they would be persistently remembered and attached to Nagoshi's identity.

Nagato's will reached out, grasping all the memories she wanted.

The fragrant, colorful plant life of her home world. The solemn receipt of her vital mission. The last farewells to her loved ones. The sight of her planet exploding into sulfuric flames. The howling emptiness of space. The tiny flickering candle of hope that kept her traveling onward, onward towards a planet she had never seen, to a girl she knew by reputation only. The crushing knowledge that she was the only one left of her own kind, alone in a universe that stretched out farther than her imagination could grasp.

She wanted it. She wanted it all.

She took hold of the loneliness, the isolation, the unfulfilled need for company with one's own kind. She embraced it. Taking the assorted shards together, she brought their roots up, up from the basic storage of Ginji Nagoshi's information, into the most prominent levels of his consciousness, and planted them. She wove them in deep.

Then she set her sights on the others, the warm embrace of mother, the playful roughhousing with brother, the shared pastimes with friends, the soft warmth of home. She rejected them, and banished them. She grasped them, to put them down with the Bogey Man, Aragami, and Santa Claus.

Then she stopped.

She had noticed an error.

The choice was to restore either Nagoshi's original nature as the last of an alien race, or his revised nature as a human being. Either one would cure his ailment, but the two were not equal. Nagoshi had clearly voiced a desire for his human identity. Selecting for him the alien identity served no benefit for either him or her mission, and was therefore highly illogical.

She examined the error. As with her alteration of the universe, personal desire was the cause. She wished Nagoshi to be an alien.

Ginji Nagoshi the alien was like Yuki Nagato. Biologically, she was and always would be a humanoid interface, but her mental and behavioral patterns had become highly deviant. In essence, she was not a humanoid interface any longer. And she was certainly not a human. The experiments she had conducted earlier were just one of many proofs of these two facts. Therefore, like him, she had no others of her kind.

Because they were alike in that way, Nagato knew what he would do if he were an alien. He would seek companionship with her. She would accept, and find a kindred spirit in him.

_This is not a __sufficient__ motive __for depriving him of his heart's desire__._

Having corrected the error, Nagato did not hesitate. She unearthed the memories of Nagoshi the alien, snipped the threads holding them in. She took them to where he would always see them as a foolish lie he had told to impress Haruhi Suzumiya. Then she gathered up the memories that would leave Nagoshi with no need to seek companionship with a nonconforming humanoid interface. She set them in their places, to be found by their owner when he awoke.

Their memories separated and drifted away from each other. They were no longer one. Instead, there was once again a human, and an alien.

She removed her hands from his head.

He blinked. "I... Astounding. All of a sudden, I simply know who I am." He sat up and looked at her. "What did you do?"

She had no response.

"I suppose it doesn't matter, does it." His voice had laughter in it. "However you did it, you gave it all back to me. Every moment of joy, of sorrow, and everything in between... I have it all again. I owe you my life."

"You owe me nothing." Everything she gave back had been taken by her in the first place.

"Well..." He got to his feet, and smiled at her. "At the least, I owe you some hospitality. Would you join me and my family for dinner tomorrow?"

"No."

He didn't let her bluntness deter him. "I know they would all love to meet you. Perhaps Friday would work better?"

"No." She pointed to the door. "Leave."

He looked crestfallen. "I've offended you."

"No."

"If I made it sound like a romantic advance, I apologize. It's just that I'm grateful to you, and I want to see you again. I'd like to be your friend."

"Not possible. Leave."

To be hurtful was not her goal, but each word seemed to draw a line of pain across his face. "Do you simply not like me? Is that it?"

"It is not safe for you to be with me."

"What do you mean? Are you saying you have a boyfriend? If he truly cares about you, he should allow you to -" He caught himself, shaking his head. "I don't suppose I can claim that's any of my business. The point is, I want to get to know you, and also... I don't feel right about just walking away from you. If you'll forgive my saying so... you seem lonely."

"I am not," she lied.

He bowed his head. "If it's what you wish, I have no choice but to obey... but please, don't ask me to never see you again."

She looked at him, weighing his sincere attachment to her, his freely offering the same companionship that she had tried to take from him against his will. What she had wanted badly enough to cause him immeasurable sorrow, she could now have honestly.

Then she pointed again to the door.

He looked like he wanted to say something more, but couldn't. He just nodded in resignation, turned away, and walked out the door.

It might have been different, she reflected uselessly, if she could believe that making Nagoshi an alien again had been only a spur-of-the-moment impulse. But the fact that she had planned to victimize him from the moment she was aware of his presence outside the clubroom was inescapable. There was no other sensible reason to have waited to confront him alone, and plenty of sensible reasons to have informed the rest of the SOS Brigade of his presence instead: Contrary to his fear that he would bother Haruhi Suzumiya, he would have provided her with an entertaining distraction that could have prevented her using her power for a while. Kyon's mind would have been eased somewhat of the anxiety he'd felt on Nagoshi's behalf. Itsuki Koizumi would have come up with a plausible lie to cover up her usage of her data altering abilities to resolve his contradicting information.

It would have been better for everyone if the SOS Brigade had helped him as a team. She had avoided that because Kyon would not have stood by and let her turn Nagoshi into something he didn't want to be. He would have rebuked her the same way he had so often rebuked Haruhi Suzumiya, and demanded she put him back the way he was. And if she refused, he would have turned to Suzumiya to put the situation right.

So instead, she had brought Nagoshi to her home in the dead of night, like a vampire luring a victim, to drain him of the life he had. Only at the last moment had she stopped herself. It might not end the same way if she were tempted again.

* * *

The next day, when she came to school, Nagato found a note in her shoe locker. There were not many good reasons for someone to write her a note, so it was likely a trap. Nonetheless, she opened it.

It read: "In case you change your mind:", followed by a phone number, and Ginji Nagoshi's signature.

If she were a human, she could simply throw the note away and forget about it. As it was, destroying the note would accomplish nothing; having seen the phone number once, the data would be present in her mind forever. Her only option was to fight the temptation.

To remove herself from Earth, and thus eliminate herself as a danger to everyone around her, was no longer possible. Even if she convinced Kyon to rescind his threat of telling Haruhi Suzumiya about her powers, the Data Integration Thought Entity would not take her back. Another purpose had been found for her, a task only she could perform.

Moreover, in part because of that task, she no longer wished to be removed from Earth. There was a great deal of good that she might accomplish if she were strong, and resisted her destructive impulses.

And she could not hate what she had become. She was not a data organism. She was not a human. But she no longer wished to be either of those things. Only for there to be others like her, and for her to no longer be a danger to people like Nagoshi, Kyon, and Suzumiya.

She put the note inside her bag. She decided that she would go to the Computer Research Society this afternoon instead of the SOS Brigade clubroom. The best way to stop herself from being a danger to others was to remove her motive, to put an end to her solitude without making herself be a human, or making a human be like herself.

She had thus far failed to achieve true companionship with humans. But that did not mean that doing so was impossible. Kyon and Suzumiya had never given up on her.

It was, therefore, her responsibility to not give up on herself.

END


End file.
